


Dyschronometria

by IShouldBeWriting



Category: Ukiah Oregon series - Wen Spencer, Witchblade (TV)
Genre: Community: intoabar, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-12
Updated: 2013-12-12
Packaged: 2018-01-04 10:04:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1079675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IShouldBeWriting/pseuds/IShouldBeWriting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>FBI Agent Indigo Zheng just needs to solve a case which might or might not have to do with the Ontogard.  Coroner Vicki Po just needs to find a way out of the bottom of the bottle.  Turns out they're in just the right positions to help each other out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dyschronometria

**Author's Note:**

> I'll write a minimum of a flashfic for whomever figures out the relevance of the date on the letter at the end of the story.

Vicki looked at the carnage which had been made of her autopsy lab and grimaced.   
   
 _What I wouldn’t give…_ She left the wish incomplete. This time wasn’t going to be any different than every other time she’d had that thought in the past three years. Captain Dante would threaten to report her for incompetence. Her superiors would hold an investigation. Then another stiff would roll through the doors and Dante would have something else to think about, someone else to bully. _Someone like Sara,_ a vicious part of Vicki’s subconscious reminded her. _She’s a friend. You should be protecting her from people like him. Damned fine job you’re doing this time,_ Vicki thought derisively as she stared at the broken and overturned equipment, the blood smears on the floor. _It’ll be just like all the other weird cases. Sara will find a plausible explanation, keep Dante off your back. But you? You’ll just huddle down here wishing you could make the world disappear._  
   
Snagging a pair of nitrile gloves out of the overturned box on the floor, Vicki reached into the grey metal trashcan and pulled out the empty glass bottle. She shoved it into her bag, zipping it shut before pulling out her cell phone.   
   
“Yeah, Mason? I need someone to send pest control down to the autopsy lab. We’ve got rats.”  
    
****  
“Look, Detective,” Indigo huffed, blowing a lock of hair out of her eyes, “you’re gonna have to accept that we are now _sharing_ this case. Your coroner may be an alcoholic but -”  
   
Giving up pretending absorption in the court order she’d been handed, Detective Sara Pezzini rose quickly, hands set wide and flat on the desk.  
   
“Now wait just a minute - “  
   
Zheng waved her back down, eyes settling briefly on the red and silver bracelet on the other woman’s wrist. _No other jewelry but she’s wearing a bracelet? In this line of work? Very curious._ “Your coroner would have to fall a hell of a lot farther into that bottle than she has for this case not to have raised flags on our end. The M.O. has Pack written all over it. _That_ is why the Bureau sent me out here and _that_ is why you and I are going to be sharing this case, got it? So long as Po doesn’t get my warrant thrown out, I don’t give a rat’s ass about her personal life.”   
   
“Funny you should mention rats.” The detective's lips twisted at the irony. “Look, Vic does good work, ‘kay? She’s just - ” the detective let the sentence hang, unfinished.  
   
“She’s what?” Indigo prodded.  
   
“This department’s not exactly an easy place to work.”  
   
“Homicide’s never easy,” Indigo shot back. “But then, Miss Po wouldn’t have gotten this far in her career if dealing with dead people was the problem.”  
   
“It’s not that. Cap’s a demanding S.O.B. He wants cases solved. He wants high conviction rates based on those cases. But some of the cases we get aren’t exactly open and shut.”  
   
“Ya think? It’s not just this department’s cases. It’s _your_ cases. I’ve read your files. You don’t just do murder, you do _weird_ murder.”  
   
“It’s not -”  
   
“Shove it,” Indigo barked. “I know weird, okay? And I know what being a fucking magnet for it’s like.” Detective Pezzini shoved her chair back, and started to come around the desk but Indigo ignored the implied threat, sliding her hands into her pockets with calculated calm. “Now, if we’re done with the territorial pissing match, why don’t you tell me where to find Miss Po. She’s not in her office. She’s not in autopsy. And don’t try telling me she’s gone for coffee. Desk sergeant tried that one an hour ago.”  
   
“I know where to find her. Just gimme an hour?”  
   
“No.” Indigo bit the word off short and quick. “With Pack involved, we don’t have time for games. You take me to Po. Right now. Get her to lay off drinking till we close this case and I’ll be out of your hair as soon as the Pack moves on.”  
   
Detective Pezzini held the door open, a pointed invitation. “Just what I need,” she muttered, “another fucking half-feral pitbull in my life”  
   
 _Oh, you have no idea,_ Indigo thought, one side of her lips twisting upward.  
    
***  
“Wait, so _that’s_ what all of this is about?” Indigo asked incredulously. “You two have been blowing sunshine up my ass because you thought you had to cover up for the body being eaten by rats?”  
   
Po and Pezzini exchanged dubious expressions.   
   
“Eaten by rats is par for the course for these guys,” Indigo laughed and poured both of the other women another shot of tequila.  
   
“Come again?” Po asked.  
   
“If you haven’t stood there and watched him burn to ashes, he’s not dead.”  
   
Po slugged down the shot chased by a swig of beer. “That’s a bit drastic doncha think?”  
   
“Members of the Pack are, um, _different_ ,” Indigo offered.   
   
“Exactly what kind of different are we talkin’ about?” Po asked, eyes flicking toward Pezzini as she emphasized the word ‘kind’.   
   
It was obvious that something had been implied by the way Po asked the question but Indigo had no idea what it was. She watched the coroner and the detective, assessing how badly she needed to get this case wrapped up, get home to Pittsburgh, to Ukiah and Max and tracking down the real threat; the Ontogard. Yes, this case might be one of them. But there weren’t any other murders and Indigo knew her quarry's patterns well enough by now to recognize what that meant. More likely this was a previously unidentified member of the Pack, or a known member being reckless who’d done a shitty job covering his ass.  
   
No, it was time to give Po and Pezzini all the facts. She’d read both of their files, seen the ways in which they’d carefully covered their own strange situations. These two knew weird. Just like Indigo did. Or more likely in a way that was similar-but-not-quite-identical to the world hidden within their own which Indigo had blindly stumbled into during that first case with Ukiah and Max.   
   
Across the table from her, a sinuous curl of dull red light caught Indigo’s attention. Turning her head, her eyes came to rest on the light’s source; the out-of-place bracelet she’d previously noted on Pezzini’s wrist. Noticing her attention, the detective tugged the sleeve of her leather jacket downward.   
   
 _Bingo._ Indigo thought, the right corner of her lips turning minutely upward in a slow cat-like smirk. This was what Indigo had been looking for. This - whatever this was - was connected to the world-beside-their-own which Pezzini and Po knew about.  
   
“Nice light show,” she quipped, fingers flicking indolently to point at the now barely hidden bracelet. “Now I’m only going to ask once: what the hell is that thing on your wrist?”  
   
Pezzini didn’t have the chance to respond with words as liquid tendrils of metal twisted and curled like sentient mercury snaking down her wrist and, from the way her jacket moved, up her arm to just below the shoulder. At the center of the bracelet the red stone - an unremarkable size until now - grew with the fluidity of a pool of blood, settling finally into a swirling glowing thing the size of a men’s watch face.  
   
Sitting calmly in the armchair across from her, Vicki Po took another long pull from her bottle of beer. “One of these days you’re gonna let me examine that thing, Sara. Try to figure out what it really is.”  
   
“Not likely, Vic,” Pezzini returned, watching calmly as the tendrils squirmed and caressed her skin.  
   
“I take it you knew about this?” Indigo asked.  
   
The coroner nodded, reaching out to pour herself another shot. Gently, Indigo intercepted the woman’s hand on its way to the bottle. “Oh no. You’re cut off. No more drinking ‘til all the cards are on the table. Time to come clean, you two.”  
   
“You gonna return the favor?” Pezzini snapped back, mouth pressed into a thin distrustful line.  
   
“Yeah,” Indigo drawled, one finger tracing its way across the web of barely visible scars on the back of her right hand. “At least I suspect that you two won’t think I need a psych eval by the time I’m done.”  
   
Po raised her bottle in mock salute. This time she put it down though without taking a drink. She squirmed backwards, settling more deeply into her armchair and waiting silently. Taking the hint, Indigo leaned forward, elbows rested on her knees as she began relating her tale.  
   
“Pack members and Ontogard, they don’t die easily. Sure, their bodies can be harmed to the point where they shut down. But it’s only temporary. Their bodies break up into smaller creatures capable of sustaining life on their own. They eat and they sleep and they heal and eventually all of the smaller animal parts gather together again, reforming into something that looks like a human being again. The only sure way for one of them to be dead is incineration. There has to be so little left that they are incapable of re-forming.”  
   
“And I thought you and that thing on your wrist was weird.” Vicki gestured toward the curiously liquid gauntlet which had continued to writhe on Pezzini’s arm.   
“Just because I’m the present day incarnation of some mythic warrior queen - ”   
“Seriously? That’s what that _thing_ is? Oh we have sooooo got to work on your tolerance for confusion, woman,” Indigo critiqued.

“I’ve had plenty of lessons in confusion,” Pezzini snarled.

The way in which Po’s face tightened momentarily was all the hint Indigo needed. She’d stepped on an open wound. _I’m sorry,_ she silently tried to tell Po with her eyes.   
   
The detective and the coroner both were weary and battle scarred, just like Indigo herself. Thinking about the reports she’d read before arriving, the tiny hints of expression and body language she hadn’t put together over the past few days, Indigo finally understood what had led Po to drink. Beneath the hardened shell of efficiency and competence the woman truly was broken. Pezzini had been right; this job was slowly driving Po to self-destruction.

***

_Federal Bureau Of Investigation - Pittsburgh Field Office  
3311 East Carson St.  
Pittsburgh, PA 15203_

_September 27th, 2002_

_Dear Dr. Po,_

_Recently you and one of my agents, Indigo Zheng, worked together on a case of ours which overlapped with your jurisdiction. Agent Zheng praised your skills as a coroner as well as your ability to think outside the box. Our field office is in serious need of more staff capable of doing so. If you would be interested in discussing the prospect of employment with the Bureau, please call me._

_Sincerely,  
Special Agent Gary Perdue, Director Of Field Operations_

Vicki’s fingers twitched, releasing the letter to flutter gently to the tile floor of the lab. She stared at it for a moment before closing her eyes. When she opened them again, the letter was still on the floor in front of her feet. Looking past it, Vicki looked at the metal trash can next to the doorway. Another week. Another empty glass bottle. Maybe this was the answer.


End file.
